Black Cat Vineyard

Black Cat Vineyard was founded by Tracey Reichow in 1996; she died in late 2023 after a two year battle with cancer in 1996. Her first commercial vintage was in 2004. Tracey’s husband Rick and her daughter Samantha are still both involved in the brand. Prior to her career in wine, she was one of the first women to work the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. In the early 1980s she visited Napa Valley because of some work she was doing for Robert Mondavi Winery. Upon returning home she informed her husband Rick about the beauty of Napa Valley. As she told us, “we started accruing frequent flyer miles” and ultimately, she and Rick moved to the valley.

They purchased a small piece of raw land in the southern part of the valley (today known as Coombsville) and Tracey soon found herself becoming interested in how to grow grapes. She and Rick had long enjoyed drinking Rhône Valley style Syrah wines, and this was the variety they decided to plant despite some advising her it was too cold in this particular location. Soon she enrolled in viticulture classes at Napa Valley College and followed that by taking wine-making classes at UC Davis. Much of her early viticulture knowledge was self-taught as the development of her vines were outpacing the time, she was able to spend taking classes.

Tracey planted her 4-acre estate vineyard to Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon in 1996. Her children helped plant more than 3,500 rootstock. She recalls vintner, John Caldwell stopping by to introduce himself and when he found out she was planting Syrah he told her the site was ideally suited to this variety. Carneros vintners, Tony and Jo Ann Truchard’s son, John Anthony who was 17 at the time, helped her secure cuttings of the Durell clone of Syrah from Truchard Vineyard to graft onto the rootstock on the Black Cat property. The name of this clone is tied to the Durrell Ranch in neighboring Sonoma County; a part of the ranch was originally budded over to this particular Syrah clone in 1980 and over years it simply became known as the Durrell clone.

Tracey began producing her first wine in 1999 and made a vintage every year through the 2022 harvest, but it wasn’t until 2004 that she felt the quality met her exacting specifications; that year was her first commercial vintage. She made her wine at the old Star Hill Winery just east of the town of Napa for a number of years, until this property was sold and unfortunately the winery was torn down. Today she makes her wine in a business park south of the city of Napa.

Her philosophy when it came to wine making was viticulture is about being ‘present’. She created a number of phrases to describe just this, including ‘first-person winemaking’, ‘boots on the ground’, ‘feeling the soil’ and ‘capturing the soul of the vineyard’ among others. Every time she walked into a vineyard, she admitted that she learns something new … even after more than 20 years of tending vines.

She worked with not only her estate vineyard but several other vineyards in Coombsville as well as on Howell Mountain, Rutherford and St. Helena. While Black Cat does not own the other vineyards, they maintain vineyard leases that allow full control of managing the vines. Tracey compared having multiple vineyards to having multiple pairs of shoes – enjoying the diversity that additional sources of grapes bring to her wines as well as allowed her to make a variety of wines.

Tracey’s wine-making style was focused on small lots – using tanks that are no more than a ton. The wines are made in an artisan style and each block from her vineyards are hand selected and all fermentation takes place in open-top fermenters. One of her favorite parts of winemaking was doing everything herself; she called this her preference for “doing” rather than “being”. This includes what would seem like a mundane operation (tank punch-downs). However, doing something as repetitious as a punch-down gave her intimate knowledge of each fermentation, allowing her to notice certain smells, color extraction or lack thereof or temperature issues.

Cleanliness is extremely important in any winery; Tracey was obsessive about keeping her winery extremely clean. Other winemakers even commented about this when they visited her winery!.

Select Wines
Whites
Tracey produced Chardonnay that she referred to as her ‘goldilocks wine’, crafted in a style that straddles the traditional California oaky buttery bottlings and the leaner crisp tank fermented wines of this variety. She gently whole cluster pressed the grapes after harvest with the resulting juice fermented in French oak barrels. The wine was aged in French oak barrels for 10 months sur lie with stirring occurring twice a month. In order to minimize diacetyl production (the compound that contributes a perceived buttery characteristic from malolactic fermentation, especially in Chardonnay), she utilized a few processes during winemaking including using Lalvin VP41 yeast (known to limit the diacetyl produced) and allows the wine to only go through partial malolactic fermentation.

The 2018 Black Cat Chardonnay Carneros is deep gold in color; the bouquet offers aromas of crème Brule, warm butter, hazelnut, baked apple, a lemon zest and tropical fruit notes including ripe mango, pineapple and papaya. The bouquet shows more California style while the palate, although intensely flavored is balanced nicely by its bright acidity. This wine offers a light creamy texture with flavors of melon, pear and Golden Delicious apple with a lingering citrus and slightly toasted oak nuance. This bottling offers a bright zesty quality which is especially noticeable on the lively and mouthwatering finish. We tasted this wine 4 years post vintage and it still has plenty of life ahead of it.

Reds
The Black Cat Napa Valley Syrah is sourced from the family’s four-acre vineyard in Coombsville; they have to net this vineyard each year to prevent bird damage and hand select only the best clusters of grapes for this bottling. The 2019 Black Cat Napa Valley Estate Syrah is dark ruby in color; the bouquet is generous and diverse, offering a pretty union of both primary and secondary aromatics including dark plum, ripe blackberry, a pronounced floral note including of violets, dried herbs, peppermint, espresso, mocha and vanilla bean. The aromatics are not overly spicy or dark in nature which are characteristics sometimes associated with this variety. Simply put, this wine smells beautiful in its youth. The palate offers primarily darker fruits including Santa Rosa plum and blackberry along with a dark licorice note. This wine is anchored by a juicy and bright acidity. The oak and grape tannins are very well integrated and linger with a savory dark spice and crushed peppercorn filled finish.

The 2013 Black Cat Napa Valley Syrah was a young wine (at the time of our tasting); it shows lively and generous fruit aromatics which are long lasting in the glass, continuing to develop and show additional layers of depth. Notes of black cherry, cherry liqueur, hints of sage, a savory component and a hint of mocha show on the bouquet. The voluptuous palate shows a beautiful soft and supple characteristic with tannins that are delicate, rounded, slightly dusty and well-integrated in the overall structure of this wine.

The 2019 Black Cat Vineyard Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley is deep ruby and nearly opaque in the glass; the bouquet smells fresh and savory with both fruits and assorted dried herbs. It offers scents of plum, bramble, blackberry, boysenberry, old cedar box, crushed dark pepper, leather, espresso, mocha and hints of clove deeper in the bouquet. The palate sports flavors of dark plum, dark raspberry and blackberry accompanied by tobacco spices and old cedar box. Texturally balanced, the tannins are gravelly, dark and linger with a light but persistent drying character and a note of crushed black peppercorn. The finish is brightly lit, accompanied by tannins and plenty of fruit, both paralleling each other for quite some time. Partner with a warm late spring evening, a tri-tip, a BBQ and great friends and make a toast to Tracey when drinking this wine.

The Black Cat Family Cuvée is their most produced wine and is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon with lesser amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Of all the wines produced, this is the only non-single vineyard bottling. The 2019 Black Cat Family Cuvée is dark ruby in color; the bouquet broods for a while until its it gets a handle on its ’emotions’ and then its core of fruit finally is revealed. Initially this wine offers savory aromatics including of mushroom, dark spices including pepper and some meaty nuances. The palate offers bright acidity with flavors of red cherry and cranberry along with old leather. The tannins are gravelly, dusty and very long lasting with with a final note of dried tobacco leaf deeper into the finish. Tracey has often thought about putting a warning label on this particular bottle of wine which would state something like, “Warning: do not open this bottle if you are alone with a pizza”.

The 2012 Black Cat Howell Mountain Cabernet is aromatically rich and offers a sweet note of aroma, like ripe blackberries complemented with notes of elegant cedar box and a hint of mocha. As the wine opens more red fruit aromatics show along with baking spices (brown sugar). There is plenty of depth in both the bouquet and the palate. A pleasing textural roundness shows from start to finish; this wine offers flavors of plum, red currant and chocolate with slightly dusty tannins which linger softly.

The Black Cat Zinfandel is Tracey’s “retro zin”, as she originally told us. She and Rick were tired of the high alcohol wines of this variety and certain Zinfandel characteristics such as spice and its fruit characteristics were being lost. Tracey keeps this wine under 15% and the 2013 vintage is slightly lower than that. We have had wines in this alcohol range that taste jammy and even ‘hot’; this is not one of them. These grapes are older and are dry farmed high on Howell Mountain. Even during drought years, Tracey has noticed these grapes ripen around the same time each year and produce similar volumes, even in 2015 when in general production was significantly lower than prior years. This is the only Black Cat wine aged in American oak.

The 2013 Black Cat Zinfandel shows plenty of fruit on the bouquet including raspberry and red cherry along with a noticeable note of vanilla. There is a perceived sweetness of fruit initially on the bouquet – perhaps from the oak influence; this wine like all Black Cat wines is fermented to dryness. The wine has good acidity; Tracey often enjoys this wine with a variety of BBQ dishes. The finish is anchored by robust and very long lasting tannins.

All the Black Cat wines are numbered with each bottle number listed prominently on the front label along with the alcohol content. The lowest bottle number we have had of the Black Cat wines in our personal collection was number 14.

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Curious about the name of the winery? This is the only Napa Valley based winery we know of that named after a particular feline. When Tracey and her family lived in Pittsburgh, PA they housed a feral black cat who later accompanied them during their move west to Napa Valley. During Tracey’s time developing the vineyard this cat was as much a part of her world as the vines. And over the decades since their family has lived on the property, Tracey estimated over 20 cats have also lived here.

Rather than at restaurants or wine shops, all the wine is sold direct to consumer. Tracey relished the fact that she met and spent time with nearly all her customers. The Black Cat wines are shipped to mailing club members three times a year and is allocated to a 3 bottle per shipment (9 bottles total per year per member). Clients can customize each shipment as needed. Total production is around 2,500 cases each year with most wines produced under 200 cases; this amount is what Tracey was comfortable making and selling. For more information and to join the allocation club, visit: www.blackcatvineyard.com

Star Hill Winery
This is where Tracey used to make the Black Cat wines; we keep these photographs here for historical reference.